


Magical catastrophy

by GlowwormiK



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Loss of Control, Magical Accidents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 00:39:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11566713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowwormiK/pseuds/GlowwormiK
Summary: POV Lotor. What happens if magic goes rogue? Lotor sneaks in on his father's council and what he hears makes him react in a way no one expected.





	1. Strange inspection

**Author's Note:**

> I assume galra grow and age at the same speed as humans do.

When I was seven years old, there was nothing I wished more than to be like my father. I adored him and his attention was my best present. We were very close back then; he took me to many meeting and allowed me to read reports made for him. We would discuss them afterwards.  
On that unlucky day, however, I woke up only to find out that in the night he went on a surprise military inspection and didn’t say goodbye to me. To say that I was devastated would be an underestimation. Over millennia, my father perfected his army so far that most of these inspections ended in nothing: several medals distributed for show and motivation; one or two names added into secret files - names of those who my father found promising. I saw no reason why he had to disappear like that, leaving me alone for a whole day.  
My classes seemed especially long that day, and in combat training I kept missing attacks. Time crawled like a snail, and it seemed like a week has passed before it was time for him to return. I would always meet him right in the landing docs, so I went there as soon as I could.   
This time he was late, though. I waited and waited, but there was no sign of him, despite his usual punctuality. First I stood straight, trying to look more like a true heir to the empire, then my back started hurting and I leaned onto the railing, then I sat down. Just as I grew tired and sad and decided it was time to leave, I heard the warning horn, signalling entering ships.   
I jumped up and gasped. I expected to see only my father's jet: he always went on these inspections spontaneously and with minimal entourage. But instead, a whole small fleet started landing, several rather big ships among them. They were so numerous that I could not see my father’s tiny hawkish jet among them.   
People started pouring out, some of them handcuffed, others armed and supervising them. A group emerged from another ship, carrying medical stretchers, then another one. Prisoners? Injured or dead? What happened there, was it an accident?   
Now I was frantically searching for my father in the crowd. He always arrives first, where could he be? Finally, I saw it. His jet appeared last from the wormhole and swooped down to the base under the incredible angle only he could master. I barely suppressed a relieved sigh - he is alive.   
He stormed out of the ship with all his usual energy, but his face was so grim that my heart missed a beat. He looked furious, but underneath it, I felt he was betrayed. What on earth happened there? He barely looked at me.   
"Get whatever secretary is on duty into the blue meeting room immediately and tell him to fetch Haggar and Arrek." he said to me. Arrek was head of secret services of the empire and my father usually arranged meetings with him personally. Weird.   
"May I come, too?" I asked. The answer was short and heavy – no.   
Without saying anything else, my father turned and headed towards the door to the main quarters. I looked him behind and froze. From the front, he looked as usual, but a part on the backside of his metallic collar was missing completely, the edges partly molten and black, the lower part of the helmet also molten and there was a burnt hole in his cape, so that it was now hanging askew. Was he shot, I asked myself in shock and then realised: he was!   
They did shoot at him. From behind. From something much heavier than a standard army blaster, judging from the size of the damage. To the neck: they must have known his quintessence-induced armour is nearly indestructibly by normal measures and tried to hit the weak spot. Stealthily: he didn't see it coming, even with his magically enhanced instincts. But somehow he did manage to dodge it after all, and the shot went on a tangent. Several centimetres further, and I wouldn't be talking to my father ever again.   
He disappeared before I had any chance to ask anything. Shocked and confused, I set off to the administrative quarters. My father's immense work capacity, further amplified by quintessence, was a well-known fact. No secretary or personal assistant was able to work with him alone, both because of incredible schedules of the nearly-sleepless emperor, and because of immense workload he generated for his assistants. He read through dozens of reports every day, and wrote even more. And every single one needed to be prepared first, so I didn't envy these people. My father had four personal assistants, working in shifts, and a whole department of secretaries for more general tasks.  
Today, Pasek was on duty. I found him in the secretary room near my father's study, whistling something under his nose and combing hair behind his ears in front of a pocket mirror. I liked him the most of the four, because he was young and used to live on a jungle planet for a long time. He told me stories about rains so heavy that they form a wall in front of your eyes, or about giant plants that eat careless insects, or about insects that are the size of your palm.   
"Hello, young prince!" he greeted me. "How are you today?"   
His careless attitude meant no one from my father's entourage contacted him on the way back. Did they forget? Or did they do it on purpose?   
"Pasek, my father is back and he wants you in the blue meeting room immediately. He looks angry, somebody shot at him!" Pasek's face was utter shock.   
"Somebody shot at our emperor?" he asked in disbelief, then jumped up, grabbed his info point, the key and rushed out.  
I remained alone. My father explicitly forbade me from coming to the meeting. Now I regretted asking him: if I didn't, I could have just shown up and perhaps would have understood at least a little bit. Now I had to stay back and wait. But my father was attacked. The enemies of the empire seemed to have found refuge in a certain sector. How can the heir just sit here and do nothing?


	2. Chapter 2

A short time ago, my mother and I had started a new page in my magical training, stealth. She taught me how to use the simplest cloaking spell.   
“It does not make you invisible” she said. “It just prevents people from looking at you. But you need to be careful: if somebody suspects your presence and stares directly at you, they will see you. Also try to avoid cameras at all costs, as they cannot be tricked.”  
True invisibility spells are extremely difficult to maintain, so I did my best to learn using this one. I was still pretty bad at it, though. Each time I tried to sneak on my father, he noticed me within minutes. I suspected that my mother taught him some way to counter the cloaking, even though he was no magic user himself. But today he would surely be distracted, and there will be many people, crowded places always make cloaking easier... I decided I had to give it a try.  
I ran so quickly that my chest started to ache. Panting, I stopped in the next corridor before the meeting room. I could not afford to open the door myself, so I knew I had to act quick if I wanted to enter with someone. I calmed my breath and concentrated at my fingertips, as my mother told me. I whispered the spell, and felt heat wave starting to spread from my fingers. Once it reached the face, I held my breath until the sensation wore off. It was done, and just in time, as Arrek stormed past me. He was a very big man, one of the few who stood taller than my father's shoulder, and also very massive. I had to make three steps for each of his to keep up with his pace.   
We went past the guards and into the door. I slid to the side immediately and chose a place behind a bookcase. Everyone was already present: Pasek, an eager expression on his face and ready to note, my mother, in the corner, her head bent down, her face covered by her hood, Morak, the fleet commander, looking very bleak, and now Arrek. My father did not intend to give them any slack.  
"Explain to me,” he started without any introduction, “how is it possible that a secret organisation exists in my empire that decided to assassinate me, and I have never heard of it?”   
Arrek froze with his mouth open. Show them, I cheered internally.   
“Your agents have informed me that the Kolta region is a calm place, no uprisings, inhabitants are actively being recruited to serve the empire,” my father went on, “twelve hours ago, I was shot from a laser gun by a member of said secret organisation. Care to explain who they are and how the latest military technology has fallen to the hands of the enemy we never even heard about?”   
I suppressed a gasp. I was proud to know galran military technology quite well, but I never heard about laser guns, it must have been something really new. There were laser cannons, but those were huge machines, installed on big battle ships. If they managed to shrink them to gun size, this could have explained the damage to my father's armour.   
It must have been the long wait that drained me, combined with the shock from seeing my father having barely escaped such a severe threat, but I suddenly felt tears burn my eyes. I wanted to sob, but had to swallow it down for fear of being noticed.  
Now it hurt to look at Arrek. He shrinked at least double in size, his eyes were twitching.   
“My emperor,” he started feverishly. “There must be some kind of mistake! My agents reported… ” My father didn't let him finish.   
“What is the name of the organisation that shot at me?” he asked, his burning eyes fixed on poor intelligence chief. Arrek swallowed.   
“I can tell you. It is called the Blade of Marmora.”   
“Blade of Marmora, my lord?” Arrek repeated helplessly.  
“You failed, Arrek. Question is why you failed. Was it your incompetence or did you shield enemies of the empire on purpose? Several members were arrested and one of them, trying to save his skin, mentioned a high-ranking insider in secret services.”   
I always thought my father was intimidating, but now I realised I never saw him actually angry. Even though his wrath was not directed at me, I started to suffocate with fear. I tried to breathe as quietly as possible and blend with the bookcase.   
The points of my ears tingled in a strange way, and I felt my face slowly become numb. What the hell? Did I put the spell on in a wrong way? However, there was no escape now past the furious emperor and I just had to sit here and wait for my doom.  
“My Lord, I am faithful to you!” Arrek was kneeling now. “I will start an investigation right away; I will catch these rebels for you! This sword of Marmora will cease to exist!”  
Ever since my father told the name of the organisation, my mother seemed uneasy. She clutched and unclutched her fists, and fidgeted with long sleeves of her robes. Something was bothering her. When Arrek mentioned the sword, he uttered a muffled shriek, and pressed both her hand to her mouth.   
“The whispering sword!” she exclaimed. My father gave her an irritated sidelong glance, but didn’t say anything.   
“My visions! The danger to your reign comes from the whispering sword! I misinterpreted the vision, it was the blade, not the sword, and it was a murmur, not a whisper! I should have foreseen it!” She was out of herself, I never saw her like that before.   
She s a w it? Saw an never told me? Now I felt betrayed, too.  
“Calm down, Haggar, this is not your fault,” my father said impatiently. “Your visions are obscure and difficult to understand until they are fulfilled.” But my mother didn't step aside, as she usually did. “The attack from a dark spot!” she moaned, “Dark, unseen...”   
My face was now completely numb, my tongue swollen and I the same tingling already spread in my chest. I could hardly breathe and was slowly starting to panic. What if I suffocate here and no one will even notice? I looked at my mother, trying to figure out if it was safe to try and contact her mind, but something seemed to have happened with my eyes, because around her I saw a purple cloud, stirring slowly and occasionally let out tentacles. Suddenly, my mother grabbed her cloak at her chest, trying to free her throat, and let out several short gasps.   
“Haggar, look at me!” my father sounded worried now. She looked up at him, tried to say something, but instead started laughing hysterically, then threw her head back, letting her hood down and would have sunk to the floor if he didn't grab her by the shoulders.   
A purple lightning jumped off my mother's fingers and disappeared on the floor. Now she was laughing and crying at the same time.   
“Everybody out!” my father yelled, but it was too late.   
Suddenly, my mother’s body skyrocketed into the air and she bent backwards so hard that her head almost touched her heels. The cloak slid down, and one of her shoes flew into the air. More lightnings struck, the doors started melting together with the walls. My mother was hanging in the middle of the room, her hair thrown from side to side by the immaterial wind. Father tried to hold her by the waist, but her body, hit by spasms, wouldn't let him grab it. The generals ran to the corners in fear.   
I panicked too, my lungs empty and my head ringing with pain. I left the bookshelf and ran towards my parents.   
“Father, help me!” I yelled, forgetting about cloaking, about the possible punishment. He turned his head to me, his eyes widened in surprise, his face pale and head surrounded by the purple smoke.   
“Stay back!”" he roared, and but I was too fast, I entered the purple cloud in and the world went dark.  
When I opened my eyes, almost nothing changed. My mother was still writhing in the air, but all of the furniture in the room seemed to have melted like metal under the heat. The generals were lying unconscious where I last saw them. I didn't feel any fear, though. If fact, all my emotions from before were gone. With a faint trace of amusement I found out that I was levitating, too. Somebody else’s cry was tearing my lungs apart, but I was not panicking. Stranger's tears were running down my face, but I didn't feel sad.   
As if from distance I looked down at my father, who stretched his hand to reach me while still trying to hold my mother in place. She must have bitten through her lip, because red foam from blood and saliva ran down her chin. Lazily, I watched blue smoke spreading and blue lightnings starting to hit near purple ones. Those are mine, I realised. I am emitting my own magical field.   
My body seemed to be filled with lazy indifference, but a new emotion came to it. I started liking the situation. I watched the destruction I was causing with a weird glee. Let it burn, I thought, let the blue storm fill the galaxy. Let all perish, and I alone will dance in the mayhem of the primordial chaos. I think I shouted those last words our loud, because I saw an unknown emotion in my father's face. Zarkon, the emperor of all known universe, was afraid of me.  
This realization filled me with unholy joy. I stretched my arms apart and tried to fuse with the magic tornado even more, but I realized that something was holding me back, something like a thin, yet durable thread. I looked down again and saw my mother scratch her throat and kick frantically around. She is still fighting it, I understood. Incredible, she is completely engulfed in her magical cloud, yet she still finds it in herself to hold both herself and me back!   
Father seemed to have made a decision. He let go of my leg and grabbed my mother with both hands. I immediately flew higher and uttered a high-pitched scream. My cloud grew thicker. Mother's head was hanging down, cramps made her shiver in agony. Pressing her to the ground with his weight, my father tore the collar of his armour off, exposing his neck and pressed her palm to his skin.   
“Channel it!” he growled. Unable to answer him properly, she just shook her head, tears ran down her face. I felt her insecurity and hit on the thread with all I had. Blood poured out of her nose; she gritted her teeth and uttered an undistinguishable cry.   
“Do it, now!” Which one of them said it? Why won't they just give up? Just let me go?  
The cloud around my mother shrunk and condensed, also pulling me closer in. Now it was forming a tornado around both my parents, with mother in the eye of it. She dug her nails into his neck until the first black drops of blood appeared. The tornado twitched as if in insecurity. Then, with a hiss, it went through my mother's body and disappeared into my father. Purple aura around him condensed, until it seemed almost solid, then his eyes widened and with a terrible crack, his skull split open across one eye, spilling a fountain of black blood. And then, magic disappeared.  
I fell on the floor, terrible landing hit all the air out of my lungs. Without the magical storm supporting me, I suddenly felt weak and small. Every muscle of my body ached as if after the most intense military training, and my throat was sore. Both my parents sunk on the floor. A black puddle of blood spread under my father's head. I tried to call to them, but my voice failed me. My body felt heavy, I could hardly move my arms. With the last ounce of my strength, I concentrated on the wall where earlier the door was, and visualized an explosion.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up in my bed, covered to my eyes with a blanket. For a second, I thought it was all just a dream; and now everything would be normal again. However, when I tried to reach the water on the table, my body reacted with such an intense pain that I groaned. No, it was certainly no dream. I remembered the puddle of black blood, my mother’s hand, thin and white, lying motionless on the floor, and cold sweat ran across my spine. What happened to them? Are they alive? Despite how my body protested, I pushed myself out of bed and made a couple of steps towards the door. My head spinned and there seemed to be not enough air to breathe, but I could not wait any second longer.   
Unfortunately, there was no one in the corridor I could ask for help, so I continued forward. My father's working chambers were not far away from my room, so I went there first. The door was locked, and I forgot my private access key, so I had to turn back. No secretary was at his post, either, the info terminal dark and dead.   
I stopped to regain my breath, fear clutched my heart. Father is always working and his secretaries are always present at their places to receive instructions, this was always like a law of nature to me. If emperor is not working, than he is... what? Dead? Or worse, crippled, locked in his own body? Or is he dying right now? And where is mother? I could not contact her telepathically, because every attempt of using magic ended in blinding headache.  
Luckily for me, another person interrupted my thoughts. He was very young and with very light skin. I didn't know him, he was not one of the secretaries who were allowed to work with secret documents. What was he attempting to see in this post?   
Don't let them see your weakness, my father taught me. Never show them your sickness, your fear and your hesitation: those are for private use only. So I straightened myself to look as royal as I could.   
“Where is my father?” I hoped I made myself sound important. The other galra seemed hesitant.   
“Young prince... You startled me...” Their insecurities are your weapon, I was told, so I pressed further.   
“Tell me immediately where the emperor is. Is he ... alive?” This last sentence is was a mistake. My voice broke and I shivered.   
“Yes, yes, of course he is,” now the other galra was sympathetic. “He is working from his private quarters these days. I am his new personal assistant.” A warm wave of relief overwhelmed me. He is alive. He is working! There was just one problem.   
“Can you carry me there, please?” I asked.  
The room was semi-dark, so I paused for a moment until my eyes adjusted to the dim light. My father was there alone, half-lying in some kind of a lounge chair, with a low table at his side. Countless papers filled his lap and stapled on the table. I let out a relieved sigh: he seemed almost fine, aside from the weird sitting arrangement. But then he turned his head to me and my heart sunk. The whole left part of his face was covered in the medical bandage, as well a part of his neck. I also noticed that he leaned left in an unusual way and that his left arm was lying motionless on top of the papers, obviously useless.  
“Leave us alone,” he said to the secretary and waited for him to leave. The door closed already, but I was still staring at him, unable to speak. Rushing here, I never stopped to think what would do when I arrived. I wanted to ask him so many things. What happened? How did he survive the tornado blast? What is with my mother? But now his burning eyes were digging deep into my soul and I was speechless and fearful, as usual in his presence.   
"Come over here, Lotor, I am not very agile right now," he snapped. I obeyed, crossing the room and sitting down at the edge of his chair. Now I could see his feet, covered in thick bandages. I understood what he meant with less agile - he cannot get up.   
"What happened to them?" I asked, looking at his feet.   
"The floor melted" he answered, "I sunk into it". I shivered: father was standing in molten metal, but refused to let me and my mother go.   
"I am sorry," I murmured, heavy with guilt. "If you decide to disown me, so be it." There was a long silence.   
"Why would I disown such a gifted heir?” he said finally. “Find me another boy in my whole empire who can melt floors with his thoughts."   
I couldn't help but giggle miserably. For sure this was just a prelude to a punishment so severe that it required an introduction. And then he wrapped his ridiculously long arm around me and pulled me closer. I buried my face in his shoulder.  
"You have a unique power, Lotor, and nothing in this world comes without its cost. The price for magic is occasional instability. You will need to work more on controlling it."  
Relief and thankfulness flushed over me like a giant warm wave.  
"What exactly happened there?" I had to make clear what exactly I did to be able to fix it.   
“You tell me what happened, Lotor. I wasn't the one flying by the ceiling and talking about mayhem.” I shut my eyes as firmly as I could. Just not that memory.   
“It seems to me,” father continued after a short pause, “that when your mother recognized her vision of my death nearly coming true, she was shook with fear and guilt. Magic feeds itself from emotions, and when a wizard or a witch is distressed, they can lose control of their powers. Of course, your mother is beyond skilful, and she controls herself perfectly. Sadly, you don't. Both of you felt the same fear for my life, so you started to serve as an unintentional resonator to her feelings. You two created a self-accelerating circuit, each one powering the other and until it came to an explosion of magic. You must have felt something weird before it came to a burst, didn't you?"   
“I did, but I was too afraid to compromise my cloaking, and I didn't understand what was happening” I answered. My father remained silent, still hugging me, and I dared ask one more question:   
“What is channelling?”   
“Oh, so you did perceive what was happening around you. When magic comes out of control, the easiest way to solve a problem is to let the excess flow into a living being. Problem is that raw quintessence is harmful for most of us, and the host may quite well die.”   
“Then how did you survive?”   
My father laughed grimly.   
“Your mother has used refined quintessence to reinforce me for millennia. It will take more than one magical breakdown to kill me,” he said, “Moreover, she has already used me to channel magic on several occasions, just never that much. I know how to handle it.“ Apparently not, I thought, looking at his severed face.   
“What is with my mother?” I finally dared to ask. He didn' t mention what happens to the witch after channeling...  
“She is alive, but she is in a deep sleep, like you were. None of the druids are able to help, so the only thing left is to wait. If you managed to wake up, then so will she.”   
One good thing about my father has always been his ability to infect others with his confidence. When I exited the room my body still ached, but my heart felt a little lighter.   
Mother did really fully recover from that accident, however when father's bandages were removed, we saw that half of his face was now disfigured by a scar. Despite our recommendations, he refused to cover it with magic or cosmetics. He wore it with his usual proud indifference, but for me, it has forever become a warning to never let my powers go completely.


End file.
